Reminiscing on a 12-Year Partnership with OSTI

This afternoon, I put aside an hour from yet another hectic day to read Dr. Walter Warnick’s article, “Federated Search as a Transformational Technology Enabling Knowledge Discovery: the Role of WorldWideScience.org.” This article by Dr. Warnick–or Walt to me–presents a wonderful overview of OSTI’s mission dating all the way back to 1947. OSTI (Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information), originally known as the Technical Information Division, was tasked with collecting and disseminating the wealth of non-classified research from the Manhattan Project.  Having lived in Los Alamos the past 15 years, where development of the atomic bomb took place, I’m very familiar with the history of the Manhattan Project and the reasons behind the creation of OSTI. Nevertheless, I found Walt’s article to be an informative and insightful read that provided a unique insider’s perspective.

Dr. Warnick talks quite a bit about the OSTI corollary, which asserts that accelerating the diffusion of scientific knowledge will accelerate the advancement of science.  In the 12 years that I have known him, it has been Dr. Warnick’s singular goal to do everything in his power to increase the speed of scientific discovery.  I know Walt to be a trail-blazer, highly respected among federal government employees in his dedication and leadership at OSTI.  He has made major strides towards making science more accessible to “science-attentive” citizens, researchers and students.

The article focuses on the major role played by OSTI in championing, supporting and adopting federated search, which is the enabling technology for WorldWideScience.org, Science.gov, DOE Science Accelerator and other sites developed and maintained by OSTI. Deep Web Technologies has benefitted greatly from our 12-year partnership with OSTI, who has supported the development of the Explorit federated search technology, motivated us to keep pushing the boundaries of federated search capabilities and been an eager early adopter of our products.

In my next blog article,  I will be highlighting a few of the many accomplishments achieve through our partnership with OSTI, so please stay tuned.